Wander, Lust
by Lady Nightspike
Summary: Candy fic: "Her words are simple, but they bite like steel. Her lightning shoots through him, tingles ringing like an echo through his body."
1. Angst

**Wander, Lust**

1st SP fic, though sometimes I feel like I've read every Style fic in the universe. Posted on the 64damn_prompts community for #16-rip and on my lj. I'd appreciate feedback. I don't own SP.

Flashback occurs right after 'Chef Goes Nanners'.

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I. Angst

A long time ago:

_She left him alone._

_Third-grade or not, sometimes that was what he remembered at night: Wendy, giggling and relieved, cheeks flushed with pleasure—Wendy, dispelling her attraction for him in a handful of words. Leaving him forgotten, calling after Stan. As if those feelings could be cast off like a coat and discarded. Shocked, he had mourned—trudging off into the distance. For once, the mass of his body weighing him down. _

Cartman jolted awake, angry at the dream-memory. Slowly his right hand drifted underneath the covers. The humiliation that he felt when he thought about her had never dissipated; in fact, it had only grown stronger and surged up into something choral, something tremendous…

His hand coaxed that spark into a fire, summoning that tension, that _antagonism_, the feeling of Wendy. Like the rough blankets swallowing him up, she rubbed against him in exactly the wrong way—a way that woke him at night sometimes, teasing his attention, but eventually leaving him alone.

A couple of hard strokes and he kicked the blankets off—grabbing for the wad of Kleenex already underneath his pillow. He crushed them in his hand when he was clean, wanting to choke the life and warmth from them. His eyes slid to the clock. It was already almost time to get up. He was always, it seemed, faced with this decision: to pull the covers back over his body and lay there in the half-light, or to wake early, filling those extra minutes before school. The prospect of a few minutes' more warmth resounded in the October air, but the longer he laid there, still and stale, the longer would be his…

Cartman flung himself out of bed. The cold choked in around him, but he ignored it and ran for the bathroom. He spent his first minutes brushing his teeth, and when the mirror started blurring his image he cast aside the curtain and got in.

…misery…

This was delight, washing the stale odor and the mild sense of shame from him. As he massaged the froth into his hair and let it run down his body, he managed to think of Wendy. She was giving a presentation in front of their entire class, something about a contest she had won. At least they would miss first period.

Swiping the last traces of shampoo from his brow, he stepped out of the shower. He went for the dark button-down that would hide some of his bulk, and the nice pants that went with it. Taking extra care with his hair. He would never be a model—nor would he be seen as attractive, especially not in South Park High—but he could be clean, presentable, well put-together. He wasn't a poor piece of shit like Kenny, half-washed and drowning his miasma in Axe. Nor was he one of those greasy losers hunched over in a baseball cap and hoodie.

He was nothing more, and nothing less, than he was.

Checking the clock again, he swore. Time had stopped in the shower, just for a little bit, and now he was running late. "Ma!" he shouted. "Get my goddamn Twinkies ready!"

His emergency breakfast. Jogging down the stairs with his backpack, he scooped up the lunch his mother had already prepared for him. He was running too late for insults so he submitted himself to a quick kiss as she handed over the bag. "Gotta go now!"

"Love you Eric!" She was going to force the issue.

Rolling his eyes, "Love you too, Ma! Now get the hell outta my way, woman!"

The short drive to the high school allowed him to go over The List. Keeping track of where he stood with whom (despite being generally hated, he was also generally _useful_), tallying up favors and working on goals…this was what made school bearable to him. It wasn't that his grades were all that bad. His teachers were constantly deploring his personality on the one hand and lamenting his 'lack of application' on the other. Would it _really_ matter, if he were smart but still unbearable? Would that make his teachers proud? Cartman had no desire to impress those who were surely out of his reach. He would settle for the begrudging and generally unenvied admission of his status among his fellow students. It wasn't that he was all that different from them—he wasn't. He would just do and say the things that others wouldn't, content instead to hide behind a veneer of civility.

His spot in the parking lot. Others had learned, usually the hard way, to leave that spot alone. He pulled in easily, stopping to stuff some Twinkies in his pockets. People cleared out of the way as he walked towards his locker. A slow smile spread over his face. There was something enjoyable in it, wasn't there?

A bright flash on his right caught his eye. Unwillingly, as if being controlled, he jerkily turned his head. He knew what would be there—knew the exact hue of her jacket. Time slowed down, the students in the hall flowing like running water. When he saw Wendy, something inside him ached, like a tooth that had overindulged in candy and was now paying the price.

"Out of the way, fatass!" someone snapped irritably from behind him. Time, like an archer's bowstring, snapped into place. Stan Marsh, athlete supreme and possessor of things-that-he-should-not-possess, elbowed him in the gut as he passed, reaching out to her. Cartman's head whipped around momentarily; sure enough, the Jew-bastard was in the background like a ghost, observing the scene. His eyes, wholly determined by the fate of his face, witnessed Stan and Wendy's lips colliding, like a bunch of fucking Swiss scientists deprived of any real action. The ache in his heart pierced his lung—gasping, hating her but still eager to utter her name, he whirled away, stomping down the hallway like an enraged golem.

As he walked, he transmuted his rage into hapless thrusts and insults against the other students. But the deep pit in his stomach, like a self-centered universe revolving on its own axis, a volcano churning its own lava, _that_ was still there.

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This story is going to be (I think) a two-parter. Anyway, if you like, drop me a line!


	2. Authority

Wander, Lust

So, here's the next...thing. There is an arc in place, and there should be at least four parts to it. I enjoy the C/W dynamic.

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II. Authority

"_Jesus, I never thought I'd have anything in common with you, Cartman."_

_Since that revelation, Cartman had tried to hold off on eating double stuffed Oreos, denying himself the particular pleasure of yanking things off, of meshing things together. But every once in awhile, he would cave and buy a whole pack, ripping off the chocolate pieces with ardor and angrily stuffing the whites together. For him this was an act of defiance, ending with a pile of discarded chocolate wafers that lost all meaning and flavor without the soft, velvety middle._

_He would crush those extra pieces after, as though they were records of something shameful, crush them in his fist and savor the pain they brought him, a curious chaser. And give them, contemptuously to Kenny—who accepted them with such sympathy that something inside him yowled every time, as though he had effectively proclaimed his shameful, stupid feelings to the dirt-eater._

"Fuck you, fatass!" The three boys exchanged their usual look—"why are we friends with him, again?"—but Cartman remained smug. He knew that look well; it had matured over the years but not mutated, and its scorn was a type of resigned affection.

"What? You saw it too! Wendy's head was moving up and down like she was giving the mic a bj!" He had seen her then, triumphant in her opportunity, and longed to bring her down, even a notch or two, to steal her from the podium and have her in his arms (but then again, that would never happen. It was her integrity that assured it, that brave gutsy quality that led to playground fights rather than romantic encounters).

Kenny meh'd in agreement, and even Kyle had a look of begrudging admission on his face. It was just Stan who would resist, Stan who was dating this girl despite never having gotten over his childhood puke problem (and what did that say about the girl involved, that she would actually involve herself in such a relationship?)—Stan who was married to Wendy in his mind. Cartman kept waiting for the day when she would wise up, or at least when she would realize that Stan was always going to be in South Park and that she was better, bigger than this place…

Kenny veered off to his class, leaving the trio at the door to their own. Cartman sighed. History made him angry—maybe it was his tendency to sympathize with the losers—

He sat down. What else could he do? It wasn't as if he could change his life. Not in any way that mattered. Unless he could get in a time machine and then blatantly lie about his personality for years, there was no way he would ever be with Wendy. Her hate for him was too intense—why look at her, over next to Stan, cozying up in the scant seconds before the bell rang as if human companionship mattered more than anything else (and sick, his stomach was sick—no more pizza as dessert). The instant he had entered the room, her gaze had centered on him momentarily; nauseatingly it had hit him again, like a recurrent illness, that she would never be his. He wouldn't live a lie for her and she wouldn't for him—especially not the lie that she loved or even liked him, not when her stomach churned with bile at the very sight of him. The way that it should have when she looked at Stan, who had hurled vomit into her face countless times…but it didn't. Cartman's shoulders slumped. The only defeat he would admit.

The teacher was droning on and on…his interest was only caught when he heard the word 'project'.

"Take five minutes to discuss who you'd like your partner to be," Mrs. Garrison said, looking pretty bored by the whole idea of 'teaching a class'.

Cartman ran The List through his head. He glanced uncertainly around the class, as though seeing its denizens for the first time. Who could he possibly work with? Butters, whom he could always bully if necessary, was in a remedial class. Kenny was AWOL at the moment, undoubtedly hanging around the buffet table in Hell, and Stan would work with Kyle. (They had to keep the romance alive somehow.) Then he heard something that sounded like early Bach and set his mind into motion the way that that composer's mechanistic music did.

"That's just not fair!" Wendy said. "I'm your girlfriend!"

"But I promised Kyle I'd be his partner!" Stan said. Wendy looked furious. It was like seeing the last cookie out on a platter—the taking-ness became its own pleasure.

"Ooh, how romantic," he said. "Having a lover's spat?"

"Shut up!" she said, turning a delightful shade of red that reminded him of...things he didn't want to be reminded of in class. Grinning, he turned back around.

By mocking her he brought her down to his level. Down to _him_. That was the only way he could degrade her with those surges of lust that he hardly understood were his. He had always been lusty, in his different ways: but schemes for money, cravings for food, if those things didn't pan out, it didn't feel like someone had ripped out one of his fingernails. (It didn't confront him, again and again, mutilating his composure). The sex that he had with her, _giving in_ the way a runner collapses after a marathon, was filled with rage, and its aftereffect was a plaintive anguish-an anguish which, given attention, would unman him yet again. The relationship that they had, imaginary notwithstanding, was one of abuse. _She abused him_.

"Now," Mr. Garrison said, "I'm going to hand out numbers. Whoever gets number one can pick their partner first, and so on..."

How stupid and useless. The straining he felt was his contempt for high school and all its redundant and idiotic _procedures_. He glared at the teacher for good measure, but it was Mr. Garrison, long immune to his silent criticism.

He looked down. He had gotten first pick. Stan would work with Kyle (who looked triumphant whenever Wendy wasn't glaring at him) and no one else had approached him. There were an even number of people in the class, and doubtless Wendy and Stan's argument had kept others from approaching her. Slowly, a smile erupted on his face.

"Number one," Mr. Garrison said. "Come to the front of the class, turn in your slip, and pick your partner."

This was _his _triumph. Kyle didn't have anything on this. He rose dramatically, letting his bulk draw all eyes. It was good for that, at least. He walked to the front of the class, watched Mrs. Garrison inspect the slip like an agent inspects counterfeit bills, and let his gaze rest on Wendy. He didn't care that his smile was a bit creepy. His audience had to think that he was doing it to fuck with her. Which of course, he was. But they couldn't know _why_. "I wanna work with Wendy," he said after the moment had hung for a little bit, the way a feather doesn't drop immediately to the ground. He went back to his seat, preparing to watch the rest of the scramble.

He had a special smile for Stan. _See what happens when you leave your girlfriend out in the cold to be with your gay lover? _He himself wasn't even sure how a smile could convey that much information, but both he and Stan understood it very well.

The rest of class was reserved for discussion with one's partner. With Wendy. Deliciously he relished the hatred and the fiery feeling, a type of event indigestion, that he knew she felt. He was understanding himself as she did, watching her unwilling movements as she came closer to him. Stan and Kyle had partnered up more quickly than the only two young people at a Square Dance—not that he'd know anything about that, fuck you Mom—but Wendy had dragged her feet like a child that knew it was going to be in trouble.

He savored the fact that he could make her feel so strongly, such antipathy, which echoed his own feelings for her. _Almost_. They had to share a workspace, yet she was sitting so far from him there was no way they could have a discussion. He reached out, pulling her chair closer by the arm. Her head snapped up, eyes popping and mouth slack. He concluded that he would never digest her. She just had too much substance; it would never be used up. Like now. If he had a camera, he wouldn't capture the cheesy-ass mushy moments—it would be _now_ that he would record, the fire in her eyes exacerbated by his prodding. Her jaw set in that half-open position that accentuated her full lips. "What do you want?" (A lot of his fantasies had started…come on now, it's no time for that).

"Wendy Wendy Wendy," he said in his best soothing voice. "I just want to work with you on this beautiful project. Together. Especially since your boyfriend is an asshole. I'm just trying to be compassionate, Wendy, can't you see that?"

Wendy's teeth ground against one another futilely. "No."

"Well, we have to work together on this Wendy. What about tomorrow after school? I'll bring Oreos."

Cartman loved the opera unfolding on her face. Irritation and hatred warred with anger at Stan and just the barest hint of amusement. "Fine," she said. "But don't think that I'll be doing all the work on this project. It's _ours_, and if you don't pull your weight, I'll ask Mr. Garrison if I can work alone." She gave Cartman her best stern look, daring him to disagree.

He grinned. {Wendy's authority is different than his, though just as forceful in its own way. And that's why they fit together—because she's strong and aggressive and some of the girls don't like that but that's also why they're apart. But how else could he have it, when it's all of her that he wants, even the bossy, opinionated parts? Especially those. And that's why a secret part of him is waiting for her to wise up about Stan, to move on to someone else, _anyone_ else really, even if it'll never be him}.

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Thanks for reading. Remember, reviews make my day!


	3. Abstraction

So, this took me a bit to write. Sorry about that. Anyway, thanks for reading.

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III. Abstraction

Flashbacks are from 'Breast Cancer Show Ever'.

_He had been the one to finally break her. Not even Stan had been able to, despite years of pushing her around, of being pushed, of having and not having her. No one else had admired her like he had, that day on the playground when she kicked his ass thoroughly, steaming in the fire of her own willpower. Even the others had shrank away from it, so intense it was. They had come looking for their buffet of schadenfreude and found it scalded their tongues. Afterwards, in the sheer brokenness of it all, he had sat in his room nursing his bruises and concluded that Pat Benetar was a fat cow and that love wasn't a battlefield: a heart was; only a heart could be bloodied and trampled and violated and still feel like the site of a great victory._

As close as they came, he reflected, his right hand drifting out to ghost touch her as she bent over their presentation, they were only connected when she looked into his eyes. She couldn't bear it often—only when her hatred was purest—to look into the intense, awful truth she saw there: the bitter constancy, the _comfort_ even, of enmity. To know solidly that friends ebb and flow with the falling and rising of their own luck, and that enemies never will.

And each breath that he took was a labored breath, a shuddering, wheezy breath, a breath that reminded him of the sheer fact that all that he was was sustained by mere _breathing_, whenever they were together.

"What _are_ you doing?" The outrage, the suspicion.

He had two choices and he saw them both clearly, as though he were a player clicking a character down one of two paths. At something of a remove from his life. He could see the blushing anger if he tormented and taunted her, spreading like a sunrise over him—tingling, ecstatic. Or he could cajole her, watching a dark sort of satisfaction, near to schadenfreude, blot out his heart as she became an icy night.

He chose the day. "What dya mean, what am I doing?" he scoffed. "Maybe if you weren't such a psycho bitch you'd see I'm concentrating on mah work so you don't go whine to Garrison!"

To his absolute surprise she started to cry. Cartman felt as though the world were unraveling, that if the constancy of enemies had gone to rot, then maybe he should too. The feeling expanded into a broad wave of helplessness as she collapsed onto him, a building fallen to ruin. Through her swollen lips she began to sing the same song he had heard and spectated and studied, an aria of Stan the Douchebag. His shoulder muffled the clarity of the words, but they had the same cadence as they always had, and he didn't need to hear them clearly to know them.

"Don't you understand, Wendy?" he asked, absolutely uncovered. "You and Stan are _doomed_. You'll just spend the rest of your life doing the same shit with him, whining about the same dumb stuff he does! He'll never change until you move on!" The exact things he had always wanted to tell, her, maybe a little clouded: but relieved, because he had nearly slipped and said, 'me' at the key moment, and that would never have done.

There was a freckle on her neck, shielded by her hair as she cried into him her bitter, excessive tears. But that was okay to him, because it poured forth hope into his soul. Maybe Wendy would hear his words; maybe _this_ time she would jettison Stan. He ignored the cries of 'Stupid! Delusional!' from the circles of Hell in his flaming heart.

He knew exactly where that freckle was because _that_ was the measure of the hate he held for himself—into that freckle, perhaps unfeeling because of the cascades of hair, he pressed a single kiss. "It's time to make a change, Wendy," he said, his voice confident and utterly lacking sarcasm.

She straightened. "You're right," she said, steel scaffolding being erected in her eyes. "I will. Please excuse me." She unlatched herself from him—no longer joined, the cold poured into his body where she had once been. She flipped open her phone and started to call Stan. He was denying it right up to the moment where she said his name, _Stan's_ name, and started to apologize. Only a few words, but enough to know the outcome.

Cartman disliked Stan's pussy politics. He hated the way Stan had grown into a semi-popular jock who got away with videogame marathons _and_ Saturday night keggers. He would never have wanted to play football. Stan's best friend was a fucking Jew. Stan's family was a fucked-up bunch of Colorado trash. People fawned on him and he acted fake-nice and it was all so sick, and someday soon Stan would grow up and disappear into relatively-nice obscurity and spend the rest of his years immortalizing his days of high school glory. This point in Stan's life was the highest he would ever know, his peak, and the years ahead stretched out into nothingness. _Stan_ stretched out into nothingness.

At that moment, Cartman would have given it all up to be Stan.

"I love you," he muttered as he gathered up his things. There would be no project today. The phone was a wall between her and him and his words, a wall so thick and unrelenting that he knew it for a dead end, and even if he could have stood waiting for the phone call to end, he couldn't wait for Wendy to come back. She couldn't return if she had never been.

Even now, as he tried to block out the sounds of her voice but not to make much sound lest she address him in any way, the fluttery snippets he heard through his own unhappiness pierced like icicles falling from rooftops. Stan would try to change, and for Wendy, that would be enough. Even if it wasn't. Because Wendy couldn't see reality the way he could, and he couldn't make her see it. So instead just took his shit and left. The lava in his gut turning to flaky ash. Closing his eyes as he exhaled the fumes of her tears. He knew how to hold in his own.

He didn't need to see to see her moving off into nothingness. Even if he was the one walking away.

She had left him—she would always leave him—he would always be—alone.

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Please review! The fourth and final part is DONE and it'll be up sometime the week before Christmas, so stay tuned!


	4. a lapse of time

So...I wrote this in a burst of activity one day during class. *grin*

I love this and I think it's the perfect ending, BUT..it's the holidays and I'm only evil sometimes (or so my friends tell me). Thus, there will be an alternate ending, posted in a few days. It will be happier (though just as open-ended). You can think of it as AU from this, or as happening before or after this. Basically, you can think what you want. I just supply some words to help you.

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**Wander, Lust**

IV. a lapse of time

[...]

[…years pass...]

{You don't notice it. You still feel connected to that person you were years ago; you can't tell if you've changed at all because you're still there. You've been observing the whole time, and change is proof against perception.}

[(If that's true for you, you think morosely, staring at the way the raindrops seem to stick to the window, it must be true for her. But there's no sign any way of her, and you've resisted finding her so that she'll always be there.) There it is, the familiar wondering, something you cuddle in your head like an old stuffed animal. When other things are going wrong, when your mother got sick, and then ill and then deceased, the feeling turned into an obsession that you wrapped around yourself like a warm blanket and dove into for weeks at a time. Kenny worried, because Kenny is still here, but the others—the important ones—are gone. Except then, one day...]

Kenny bursts into his office. "I just got some great news!"

The look on his face isn't promising, despite the words. Cartman remembers the first time Kenny had this look, way back in the third grade when he first discovered that the word 'pussy' wasn't just for cats. The devil must love Kenny because of that twisted Christmas morning smile…

…

They're alone for a few brief instants, the space between heaven and hell. At first it's totally silent; it's them watching Stan leave the room. For perhaps the first time, Wendy is the one who breaks it.

"So," she says, shifting her weight from foot to foot. She's still standing and he doesn't know why. "You've been well?"

"Yeah," he says, cursing his voice which is at least three notes too high and off-key. Nasal. "The businesses have been doing well and I'm able to run it all here, from South Park. Kenny's my vice-president now." (How stupid it all sounds to him—she probably already knows that from Kenny. And how small it sounds.)

"Mmm. Kenny told me you guys are doing good business here. I think it's nice of you to stay in South Park so he can be close to his family." Her eyes convey the blandness of her statement, like a bunch of white vegetables. He'd tried a diet like that once out of sheer self-hatred. A desire to self-destruct.

But she's come slightly closer now, close enough to talk to him, and their eyes meet briefly and she doesn't flinch away. He has to know. "Wendy, I thought you used to hate me," he ventures. The sly question in his voice is just slightly teasing, like the smile playing around his lips. His eyes slide involuntarily to the freckle on her neck, then away again. Sliding off her.

"Cartman," Wendy says, smiling. _Smiling at him_. "That was a long time ago and we're a lot older now. Why would I possibly hate you?"

He doesn't say much after that. Slowly he drifts on, just a cloud passing by. Slowly.

_She kissed him in front of everyone; plausible deniability had lived in the space between their lips and subsequently been annihilated._ _It's perfect. It's just too perfect and he knows this but like a child with a house of cards he cups his hands gingerly around it, daring it not to fall. Shielding it from the wind._

_

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_Please review! It's the holidays. :-)


	5. a lapse

Interpret at will. Please review if you liked the story. Thanks for reading!

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V. a lapse

[You pray and you hope, even though you've nominally forgotten how to do either. This feeling is so old that it's become abstracted from any properties it may have once had and become part of you, a bedrock to the rest of your life. When your mother died, relinquishing the pathetic strands of the life she had, the rock became a statue that you carved in her image. You visit it often in your mind, because it's not part of South Park. It's part of _you_.

You catch sight of her like it's fate paying you back for all your blind devotion. She is in the grocery store, buying sesame oil, quinoa and flour. A large sack of flour. It's long-term groceries, but you're not sure that you're seeing straight—it could all be a hallucination. You make a pact in your mind not to tell anyone. If you don't react, you can't overreact.

And at City Wok? Whatever. It's late at night and you're in an MSG-induced coma after a long day at work (thanks to Kenny's fucking drunk-ass father, who had convinced himself that Cartman and Kenny were drug lords and proceeded to take it out on their tax records…fuck) and Kenny almost persuaded you to go home with him and eat Pop Tarts, that's how fucking tired you were. Instead you both stumble into City Wok and laughingly order as much shitty Chinese food as you want. It's just a moment, observing her from the corner of your eye, subdued like an old memory. Blinking clears your vision and you notice Kenny looking at you curiously, as if you're contagious and he just found out. Like any instant, it slips out of your notice and into nothingness so quickly you don't even reflect on it.

But that _third_ time, a charm or a curse or whatever it is, that time won't let you wade in denial any longer.

Let's not hold it at a remove from reality anymore.]

"Yeh, I unnerstand," Cartman drawls at the secretary. Shit! This is the _third_ one to get pregnant. Cartman moans to himself about how he'll have to trawl Raisins again, looking for someone who is barely literate and moderately attractive. They can't import them from elsewhere, because then they'd have to explain about South Park and the poor girl would have to be institutionalized. Disappointment in his eyes. Maybe he can get the next one spayed, he thinks to himself.

So it's a late night once again—Kenny does it just so he doesn't have to go home, but Cartman has some paperwork to fill out—fucking pregnancy—and Kenny runs down to the store to get frozen pizza. Cartman doesn't look up when he returns, too busy scrawling his signature all over the severance package.

"I have a thought," Kenny announces, in a voice that seems neutral, idle almost, but which really masks extreme interest. "I know someone who can fill the position—I'll just have to talk to her."

Cartman's not all that bright late at night when he thinks all women are broads and has to complete paperwork in triplicate to prove it, so he just says, "You're mah partner aren't ya? Just hire the bitch!"

The next day, snow is falling softly when he walks into the office. He catches sight of _who_ is in the office and ducks back out again. Calls Kenny, standing in a blizzard. "Kenny! Kenneh!"

Kenny's smirk is _audible_, fuck. "Good morning, Cartman," he says. Cartman swears he can hear the toaster spewing out Kenny's Pop Tarts from here. "Is there something you wanted?"

"IS THERE SOMETHING AH"—Cartman suddenly remembers that Wendy is not very far from him and that snow does not, generally, muffle sound. The next words are in a stage whisper. "Whuh dya mean askin' me that dumb question, fool! Why is _she_ in our office?" All pretense to Wendy-centric indifference fallen away.

"Who?"

Cartman's hands clutch his pants so hard that his nails dig into his thighs. He wants to rip the pants like he's jerking Kenny's head away from his body—but then again, Wendy's inside. His intellect tells him he needs pants when Wendy is around. "_You know who_," giving each word equal weight, making it sound like he's referring to Voldemort.

"Why Cartman," Kenny says, his smile widening, "You told me to hire her."

He hangs up the phone with as much force as possible. No negotiating with terrorists, he reminds himself. Or Canadians. An odd assortment of swear words floating around in his mind. _Fucking! Shitty! Son-of-a!_ He's so distraught he can't even match them with appropriate nouns. He explodes through the door like a volcano; even unflappable Wendy flinches back. Submissive in her surprise. But only for a moment. With gratitude he notices her steeling herself, as though willing laser beams to shoot from her eyes. Obviously Kenny warned her about her working conditions.

"Why are you here?" he demands.

Wendy slides out from behind the desk. She looks like a stormcloud newly-formed: heavenly. She stands in front of him as though they are about to duel. "I needed a job, and this was better than working the counter at Harbucks." Her words are simple, but they bite like steel. Her lightning shoots through him, tingles ringing like an echo through his body.

Exhilarated, he exhales slowly. "You can't work here." At least he _can_ kill Kenny—the bastard will be back in a couple of days. He's never done it before, but he can try new things. Maybe he'll put poison in his beloved Pop Tarts—if one can poison a Pop Tart, considering the amount of junk already contained within. Maybe he'll poison Kenny with broccoli.

"Excuse me?" Wendy's voice wakes him up. Without even thinking, he's got a finger stroking the plump part of his bottom lip. He can feel the desire starting to well up in his chest as he gives her a long look that is entirely too personal: searching, knowing.

"Wendeh, you can't work here!" he repeats, shouting now. He desperately wants her to go away, but he's afraid she'll leave. He continues, "You'd be…you'd be wasted as my secretary!" The words blow out of his mouth like a snowstorm, and the tone is belligerent, as if even admitting that much offends him. He is so embarrassed, he turns around, like a child having a time-out. "I can offer you a job as a partner instead."

The hatred has lasted too long to remain hatred. Like any other creature, it had to evolve or die. Slowly two hands reach out and turn him around by the shoulders. He's staring right into her eyes, seeing a glittering excitement that matches his own. Because she knows him so well, she doesn't ask if he's serious, or what her duties will be, or what his intentions are. She understands that Cartman is asking her to take on part of the best thing he has; she even thinks she understands why.

She _thinks_ she understands, until she sees his face, illuminated and expectant. Maybe she doesn't understand at all. "Sure," she says, wholly uncertain. "Can I get that in writing?"

They argue as they finalize the details, beautiful and torrential, but she's glad. It's going to get her back to herself, back to someone she felt she'd lost in the years between leaving South Park and returning to it. It's the reason she came back, to find the pieces of herself scattered like a scavenger hunt through her own past. Stan had made her lose it all, and in the end she'd lost him too. But this is how it begins again…

_She had this crazy dream about him once—crazy and absolutely silly—when they were working together on a stupid school project. Cartman would never ride a horse, and they would never roll around together in a field full of flowers. Wendy's allergic, for one thing, and for another, it's Cartman. The whole thing is so mushy that if it actually happened, she's sure he would die of shame. As it was, she had to fishbowl herself back to reality and that didn't even work too well: dripping wet, mildly slimy, she remembers the _feeling_ in the dream nevertheless. Sometimes she wonders where it came from and if it can be explained away. Sometimes she wonders what it would be like to have that feeling back._


End file.
